Author: Deacon Douglas McManaman

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_396dawkinssimplicitycomplexity.html

D. McManaman

Recently I watched part of Piers Morgan’s 2023 discussion with Richard Dawkins on Piers Morgan Uncensored. There wasn’t much that was new in Dawkins’ presentation, but he did introduce an idea that I’d never heard him articulate before. At around the 6 minute mark, Dawkins says: “…it doesn’t help to postulate something very complicated at the outset, because what we’ve got is primeval simplicity, and from that stems everything; and what science does is it starts with simplicity, which is relatively easy to understand, and from that it develops into the whole of the universe and the whole of life. It doesn’t help to start with complexity, and a creator has to be complex.”

This is very interesting, and it is probably the most philosophical claim I’ve ever heard Dawkins make. There is a sense in which he is entirely right about this, but the principle is not inconsistent with the notion of a divine creator, but entirely consistent with it. I believe the reason Dawkins cannot see it is that the conceptual framework in which he operates is fundamentally empirical or empirio-metric. He has a mind for science. The evidence we need to grasp this point is not empirical evidence, but rational data, that is, rational evidence that is gathered as we move the discussion to the level of the philosophy of being, which is the only level on which we can talk rationally and meaningfully about God, unaided by faith, that is. 

Basically, God is entirely, completely, and utterly simple. Every being other than God has a degree of complexity. But understanding this depends on an understanding of the real distinction between essence and existence. A being is a habens esse (that which has an act of existing), and any being whose essence and existence are distinct is a contingent being (a being that may or may not be, that is, need not be). But a being whose essence is its existence, that is, identical to its act of existing, is completely and utterly simple, for such a being is Being Itself. It does not “have” being, but it is its own “act of being”, and there is nothing simpler than “being”.

The things around us have a degree of intelligibility. They can be known to some degree or another. In fact, their intelligibility always seems to exceed what we currently know about them–there’s always more to know about the phenomenon in question. But the scientific endeavor begins with the desire to know “what something is”, that is, the nature of the thing. However, there is an intelligibility that is distinct from the intelligibility of a being’s nature, and that is the intelligibility of its very “existence”. I can know “what” something is, without knowing whether or not it is. Of course, in order to really grasp something of the nature of a thing, it must first exist; but the being before me–whatever it is–has a two-fold intelligibility. I grasp its “whatness” (what it is), at least to some degree, but I also apprehend that “it is”. My apprehension involves two distinct acts of the intellect. The reason is that existence does not belong to the nature of any material thing; for what belongs to the nature of a thing belongs to it necessarily, and so if “existence” belongs to the nature of a being, then that being exists necessarily, not contingently–that being would be “the necessary being”, which is a being that “cannot not be”, and therefore always is. 

After 30 years of teaching, I came to more fully appreciate the simplicity and soundness of Leibniz’ modal argument for the existence of God: “If the Necessary being is possible, then the Necessary being exists” (If MLp, then Lp). Those who attempt to refute the argument always seem to indirectly assert the distinction between essence and existence. It is typically pointed out that because the very idea of something (i.e., the necessary being) is possible, it does not follow that it actually exists. Of course, that is true in the case of contingent beings (one cannot establish the existence of a unicorn, or a flying horse, etc., on the basis of its definition, which expresses or attempts to express what the thing is essentially). However, there is only one case in which one can posit the existence of a being on the basis of the definition or idea, and that is the case of God, who is the Necessary being, who cannot not exist, but who exists necessarily. If such a being is possible (namely, the Necessary being), then such a being exists, and the reason is that such a being is necessary and cannot not exist. 

Not everyone is convinced by the argument, and the reason seems to be traced back to an understanding that “essence and existence” are not the same, that one cannot go from an apprehension of “what” something is to the conclusion “that it is”. 

There’s no need to defend Leibniz’s argument here. The point is that those who take issue with it typically end up distinguishing between “what a thing is” (essence) and “whether or not it is” (esse). Each contingent being is a composite, which is a degree of complexity, namely a composite of potentiality and actuality (essence and existence). An existing contingent being is a potential being that is actual–but it need not exist, that is, it can “not exist”. A human person, such as Abraham Lincoln, is a contingent being, a mosquito is a contingent being, a carbon atom is a contingent being or thing, etc. 

The argument for the existence of God that starts with contingent beings–as opposed to beginning with the very idea of a Necessary being–will begin by pointing out that no contingent being contains within itself the sufficient reason for its own act of existing. A thing cannot give what it does not have, thus an existing nature cannot receive its act of being from its own nature, which is distinct from its being, because contingent beings do not contain existence by nature–otherwise that contingent being would be the Necessary being. Nor can a contingent being receive its own act of existence from another contingent being, because a contingent being can only act within the limits of its nature, and existence is outside the nature of a contingent being–that is why we cannot bring something into being from nothing, only from already existing things. Hence, the cause of the received act of existence of a contingent being is a non-contingent being, that is, the Necessary being. And this is what we mean by God, namely, that Being that is Being Itself, or pure Act of Existence–demonstrating that there is and can only be one Necessary being would take us too far afield at this point.

God, who is pure Act of Existence, is not complex. The reason is that outside of being is non-being, or nothing, therefore whatever is in God is identical to God’s act of existence. Whatever perfections we find within the realm of contingent beings exist in God, but differently. In God, they are identical to “his” act of existence. Hence, knowledge in God is not distinct from his being, but is his being. Thus, God is his knowledge, and his knowledge cannot not be, but is eternal and unchanging. Also, good is a property of being (whatever is, is good insofar as it is), and so God is Goodness Itself–he does not “have” goodness as one property among other properties. So too, beauty is a property of being, and so God is Beauty Itself, and truth is a property of being (a being is true insofar as it is), and thus God is Truth Itself. 

And so Richard Dawkins is correct: “…it doesn’t help to postulate something very complicated at the outset, because what we’ve got is primeval simplicity, and from that stems everything”. God is that simplicity, and nothing in the universe can be that simple without being God. What Dawkins overlooks here is that science begins with a different kind of simplicity, a very impoverished kind of simplicity–for example, the electron is simpler than the atom, the atom is simpler than the molecule, the molecule is simpler than the organism, etc. The simpler something is from this angle, the poorer it is–a human being is richer in intelligibility than a molecule, and a molecule is richer in intelligibility than is an electron, etc., just as an automobile is richer in intelligibility than a gasket. The simplicity of God is not the simplicity of a material substance or its smallest part; it is the simplicity of Being Itself. Such a simplicity is inexhaustibly rich in intelligibility–not complexity–, and the variety and diversity and complexity of contingent beings that make up the universe is a parable that speaks of the inexhaustible beauty, goodness, and intelligibility of God, who is absolutely simple, because he is pure Being Itself. 

But,” said Moses to God, “if I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what do I tell them?”

God replied to Moses: I am who I am. Then he added: This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.

(Exodus 3, 13-14)

Homily for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Deacon Doug McManaman

“The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.”

This is an interesting passage from today’s gospel reading; what it shows is that Jesus makes a distinction between what the scribes and Pharisees teach, and the example they set before us. Embrace and observe what they tell you, but do not follow their example. The reason is that they are hypocrites, they are egoists. Their religious leadership is all about them and how they appear. 

The reason this reading is so relevant can be summed up in that old expression: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Hypocrisy has not died out; it’s still here in the Church, there are still clerics who are opportunists, who think priesthood is about them, who are envious and love to be the center of attention, and so on and so forth. Jesus established a Church on the twelve apostles, choosing Peter as the head of the Apostles, and yet he knew they would scatter and that Peter would deny knowing him. But he chose them anyway.

That’s the humility of Christ. He continues to be present among us, to forgive our sins and to give himself to us in the flesh, through the unworthy hands of sinful human beings. There’s no getting around that. Catholicism is not about us; it is about Christ.

Christ’s directive here can be very difficult to live out: do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. Even among the clerical ranks, there are some who are somewhat pharisaical. So if you encounter a priest or bishop who is annoying, immature, perhaps thinks it is all about him, when you are stuck with a cleric who has as much compassion and diplomacy as a steak knife, the temptation can be to walk out, turn your back on the Church and never look back. Some people have done so. But it is at this point where we have to keep our eyes on Christ, not his instruments. 

The fact is we are all hypocrites. None of us really practice what we preach, at least not perfectly. I don’t know about you, but whenever I look back at my own life, when I see old pictures or videos of myself and am reminded of things I did or said that are now forgotten, I often don’t like what I see. I often say to myself: “Gosh, I can’t believe I said that back then, or I can’t believe I did that. What an idiot I was”. And although we may not see anything wrong with us now, 20 years from now we may look back at this time and shake our heads at what we can’t see now, but will see later. And yet Christ still works through us. He still gives us a sharing in his divine nature, even though we are very imperfect and unworthy vessels. We still have charisms that he has given to us for the building up of the Body of Christ, and yet we remain defective vessels. 

So when a person turns his back in anger at the Church for some clerical imperfection–and I am excluding criminal behavior here, that’s a different matter altogether –, when it is merely a matter of annoyance or something he said or his personality, or something more serious such as genuine egoism or condescending moralizing, one is cutting oneself off from the sacraments, which are channels of divine grace. It’s what the expression “cutting off your nose to spite your face” means in this context. 

This life is about learning to forgive one another, and all those who refuse to forgive, who choose to harbor unforgiveness against the Church as a whole or against another person, really end up condemning themselves. In the Our Father, we pray: forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. We are instructing God to forgive us only to the degree that we forgive others. If we don’t forgive, we block God’s forgiveness of our sins. And so we need to pray that God will give us the strength to get past whatever wounds we carry, and this could take a long time for some of us to get to that point, but if we hope for the Lord’s forgiveness, we have to be willing to forgive all those in our lives who need to be forgiven. 

Deacon Doug McManaman

When I was teaching, I would often tell my students that there are two subjects that should be mandatory for all high school students in the province of Ontario, and both begin with the letter “E”: ethics, and economics, neither of which are mandatory in the public schools. Economic illiteracy has rather serious repercussions, not to mention ignorance of the fundamentals of ethics. 

One thing that economists will often point out is that “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. Well, I love economics, but the gospel reading (the Parable of the Wedding Banquet) suggests that there is one important exception to that principle, namely the kingdom of God, the fundamental content of Christ’s proclamation, the subject matter of almost all the parables. It is more than a free lunch; it is a free and eternal banquet. All are invited to this eternal banquet, without exception, but mysteriously, not everyone accepts the invitation. 

Now there’s a very subtle but important point to this parable, and it is something that many religious people can often forget. The point is this: There is nothing that anyone has done to earn an invitation to this banquet. It is pure gift; pure grace. This is an eternal banquet, a banquet not of this world, but of the “other world” (aionios), and the joy of that feast is beyond our ability to conceive. And it is a banquet that will last forever, but it begins in this world. We begin the feast here, and the joy of that feast is also to begin in this world. It is sheer gift. 

But we have a hard time accepting that which is given gratuitously, without our having earned it in some way. A neighbor of mine is an electrician, and I asked him if he has time to look at an electrical outlet for me. After a long day, he came over, looked at the problem, got it working again, but it took some work. He even put in new parts. I asked him how much I owe him, but he wouldn’t accept any payment. I insisted. He just wouldn’t do it. I found that difficult, and I thought about that difficulty of accepting what is offered as a pure gift. There seems to be a need to earn it in some way, a need to pay for it, to balance the scales. This can be transferred to the sphere of religion. When this happens, what we end up doing is very subtly we make our religion a matter of law. We reduce it to a morality, a set of precepts and rules to follow, that is, we reduce our religion to a conditional: “If, then”: “If you do this, then reward will follow”, “If you do not do this, that, and the other thing, then you won’t get this…etc.”. We develop a legalistic mindset. 

St. Paul battled this mindset in his letters, especially Romans. We are not saved by the law, but by grace. We are saved by the grace of faith. Our invitation to the eternal wedding banquet was not conditional: “…invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet. …they gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests”. All we have to do is believe that this gift is ours, offered to us, and is ours for the taking. Just accept this gift.

Law and morality come after, and they do so out of gratitude for this sheer gift. A good illustration of this is the story of Zacchaeus, who climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus passing by. He was a hated tax collector, which means he was considered a traitor. What happens? Jesus approaches him, calls him by name, and says: Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house. He came down quickly and received him with joy. That’s it. What took place afterwards? Zacchaeus said: “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.”

Jesus didn’t tell him to do that. That certainly was not a condition for Jesus staying at his house. That was the result of Jesus approaching him, calling him by name, and actually intruding on him so to speak. “Today I must stay at your house”. Why? Sheer gift. Zacchaeus received that gift with great joy, and what followed was a moral transformation. Sort of like heliotropic plants, such as the sunflower, that move in the direction of the sun. The sunflower was not told from outside to move in that direction, rather, the sun shines on it first, and in response it moves. People were scandalized when they witnessed this—”he’s staying at the house of a tax collector”, they said. 

Devoutly religious people have a tendency to put morality first as a condition. Perhaps in this way we feel that we have earned our salvation in some way, that the Lord has entered into my life because of something that I have done, some good that the Lord sees in me. Far from it; there is nothing we can do to merit the kingdom of God, nothing we can do to earn an invitation to the wedding banquet. It is pure grace. And that eternal wedding banquet begins now, in this life. The invitation is, here and now, offered to each person, good and bad. All we have to do is receive it, accept it, say yes to it, and the joy of that banquet will begin today. 

The first letter of John, 4, 10, says the following: “This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might have life through Him. And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” And St. Paul says the same thing in his letter to the Romans: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

It’s not about us. We don’t have to earn it, nor pay for it; Christ paid the debt already, a debt we were unable to pay, and his blood was the means of exchange. All we have to do is believe him and allow ourselves to be loved by God, and then our life will change, but it will be a joyful change. A good number of Catholics see the Church’s moral teachings as a burden, and they resent the imposition of that burden. And yet, when law is placed first, it is indeed a burden, too heavy to carry; for we are inclined to sin, and we cannot rise above that inclination without his grace. But he said: “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy, my burden light”. The yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two oxen. Christ invites us to be attached to him by his yoke. Plowing is much easier when there are two oxen pulling instead of one. Yoked to Christ, living morally virtuous lives is no longer burdensome, but a joy, even if it is a struggle. I remember after my return to the Church when I was 17 years old, one thing I could no longer do was to take the Lord’s name in vain. Swearing in the true sense of the word–not foul language, but taking God’s name in vain in situations of anger. That, I noticed, was the first change that took place in my life. Other things took a bit more work to reform, but I was determined to correct them in my life, out of gratitude to God for intervening in my life. 

Grace must always be first, and then the moral life follows afterwards. And that’s why the gospel must never be reduced to a morality, not even a social justice morality. The good news of the gospel is that Christ died and rose from the dead, he died for you and for me, and eternal life is yours and mine for the taking, no need to earn it, we can’t. All we have to do is believe it. Faith, and then the joy of new life in Christ will change us in this world, as it did Zacchaeus. And then we will see that nothing in this world compares to being in a state of divine grace. Everything in this world comes to an end, fizzles out, our money, our property, our business, our health, it’s all temporary. But the life of divine grace, symbolized by the wedding garment, is a sharing in the divine nature, and that divine nature does not come to an end, and as long as we are clothed in it, it will blossom into unimaginable joy in eternity.

Deacon D. McManaman

We’ve heard some negative press about Pope Francis’ responses to the recent Dubia. One person I know thought it was an instance of “giving scandal” and believed that now every wayward pastor and every same sex attracted couple will take it as an endorsement to continue in sin. I do not share these beliefs. What follows are some thoughts on why I believe such sentiments are not quite on point.

The responses to the Dubia are, I believe, rather brilliant. There is no doubt in my mind that the entire response is a “prudential matter”. It is also undeniable that wayward priests and anyone with questionable honesty will abuse what is written there and use it to justify many things that were not said therein. We know this from experience, i.e., the aftermath of Vatican II. The only difficulty with questioning prudential judgments is knowing what would happen if a different decision were made. For example, what would be the state of the Church had Vatican II not taken place? We simply don’t know–there are myriads of possibilities. What would have happened had the U.S not toppled Sadaam Hussein? Would he have finally achieved nuclear capacity? Very difficult questions that require tremendous learning. So it is a prudential matter, the application of principles to a concrete situation with innumerable factors to consider, and which require other intellectual virtues besides a knowledge of general principles, such as memory, docility, foresight, circumspection, caution, and shrewdness (Cf. Aquinas, S.T., II-II, q. 48). Memory requires experience, and the experiences we have are not universal, but are very much circumscribed. I am an experienced high school teacher; I am not and never have been a principal (administrator). Nor have I been a pastor of a parish, nor have I been a bishop of a diocese, nor an Archbishop, nor a Cardinal. And I certainly have no idea what it means to be a pope. That is why after a while, I stopped “second guessing” our school administrators’ decisions. I came to see that they have information that I don’t have. My friend became a vice-principal and a principal, and over the years he shared with me things that I otherwise would have missed. I only had the four walls of my classroom to deal with and the information that comes via that limited channel. That too is the reason that my friend, Major General JR Bernier (former Surgeon General of Canada and NATO) refused to “second guess” the medical advisors of the Ford government–because he lacks the situation/region specific political/economic/viral/medical etc., data that he would need to make such decisions, data that changes every day. 

But here is my theological point. We are each given certain charisms to fulfill the duties of our vocation, and a bishop is given the charism of office. The Pope especially is given the charism of office (“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” Lk 22, 32). Not only does he see what we in our very limited situation do not see, but he has a charism that you and I do not possess, because we don’t need it–God has not called us to govern the universal Church. Your charisms and experience are specific to your unique vocation.

It is true that if we simplify everything to a “black and white” level, those at the very bottom of the intellectual and moral ladder will have clarity (whether or not they obey is another matter), but those higher up that ladder will see that things are just not that simple, because they understand that reality is very complex (as does Pope Francis), and so on their end, the Church will lack credibility as an institution capable of dealing intelligently in a highly complex world, and so the Church will lack relevance to a good portion of the world. So, it’s like squeezing a balloon. The problem just gets transferred from one level to another. But a decision has to be made. The decision must be grounded in the truth, and if the truth is complicated, so be it. What is the best decision to make in the circumstances? We have to know all the factors involved, which requires a great deal of experience, and we need that specific charism, because experience is still not enough. The Pope has that charism, I don’t. As for the Pope’s theological responses to the Dubia, they are, from an epistemological point of view, absolutely right on point. Is now the opportune time to introduce such distinctions? He seems to think so. We have to trust that the Lord has given him the charism to discern, that he is the vicar of Christ and that “he who hears you hears me” (Luke 10, 16).  

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_399growingold.html

The following essay was written in 2022, as part of a book of essays on Catholic Education, by a Canadian Catholic Publisher. I had this essay removed from that collection because I did not wish to have it associated with another essay that constituted an unfair and inaccurate depiction of Catholic Education in Ontario. There are so many good Catholic teachers and administrators trying their best to bring the good news of the gospel to the students, and navigating through today’s waters is not always easy, but alarmist and hyperbolic screeds do nothing to further Catholic Education in this province.

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_395educationdoctrinalvacuums.html

Chapter 14 of Some Fundamentals of Catholicism